Great interface, but slow speed.
Editor's Note: Due to the popularity and interest in our last VPN roundup, we're reviewing five more VPNs this week to see which of them is the best. We expanded our tests to test ping in more games and at different times of day, and also expanded our upload/download speed tests. For a beginner's guide on what a VPN is and why you should care, read our introductory article Everything You Need to Know About VPN.
NordVPN is the best for VPN beginners. Its desktop app is easy to use with a friendly, almost cartoonish map to help you find a server. It also boasts an impressive number of servers in its network around the globe. However, in an effort to simplify the connection process it doesn’t provide any information about the location of its servers, but it does indicate their distance from you. NordVPN turned in lackluster results on my speed tests, though none of the VPNs we tested were such dogs that gameplay felt sluggish.
Pricing
NordVPN costs a buck or two more than most other VPNs at $11.95 a month. Like other services, NordVPN offers discounts if you sign up for six months or longer. Its six-month plan lowers the cost to $7.00 a month, the one-year plan costs $5.75 a month, and the two-year plan costs $3.29 a month. All four plans offer a 30-day, money-back guarantee so you can try the service risk-free. The plans support up to six simultaneous devices, which is one more than most VPNs allow. Payment options include credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin, and Paymentwall. It has apps for Windows and Macs as well as Android and iOS devices. I used the Windows app for my tests.
Features
NordVPN features a well-designed, easy-to-use desktop app. When you launch it, it asks you what you will use it for: Security, Streaming, P2P (torrents), or Anonymity. What's great is you can choose multiple answers, and for my speed tests I chose Streaming.
The NordVPN app is easy to use in part because it simplifies things. For example, you can choose to connect to a server by browsing a map or an alphabetical list, which is simple and straightforward, but unfortunately you can’t drill down to a level where you can browse by city. You simply pick a country and then NordVPN finds the best server in that country. It doesn’t tell you in which city the server is located, which makes it harder to find a server you like upon subsequent VPN sessions. The app also does not provide a way to create a list of your favorites as you can with TigerVPN and VyprVPN. NordVPN has 927 servers in 57 countries at the time of this writing, which is a bit on the low side but certainly adequate.
The NordVPN Windows app supports only two VPN protocols: TCP and UDP. It supports L2TP, PPTP, SSTP, and IKEv2, but you’ll need to do a little legwork by following a NordVPN tutorial to use these protocols. The NordVPN Windows app does not support the popular OpenVPN protocol, except via a manual connection using an open-source OpenVPN GUI. NordVPN's Terms of Service state the company does not log your Internet activity to protect your privacy. Nord also offers a kill switch that shuts down your Internet connection if the VPN gets disconnected.
Performance
Routing your Web traffic through a server adds a detour that can slow down the speed of your network connection, but in some circumstances it can actually improve your ping by connecting you to a fast server close to the gaming server. Your mileage will inevitably vary, depending on your location and the location of the gaming server to which you are connected.
To test the performance of NordVPN, I ran the SpeedOf.Me test to measure download and upload speeds and also played League of Legends, Overwatch, and Team Fortress 2 to check the VPN’s effect on my ping in real-world multiplayer gaming. Because the speed of your Internet connection fluctuates throughout the day, I ran each test twice -- once in the afternoon and another time in the evening. For the tests, I simply hit the connect button to let NordVPN choose the fastest server. Each time it selected a server in the U.S.
With SpeedOf.Me, NordVPN got off to a slow start, finishing solidly in last place for both download and upload speeds in the afternoon. It managed to move up to fourth place (out of five) in the evening tests for download speeds while remaining dead last for upload speeds.
Next, I ran three games in the afternoon to test latency. On League of Legends, my ping on the game’s Americas server was so good (40ms) that I choose instead to connect to its “EU Nordic and East” server where my ping was higher to see if NordVPN could improve my ping. It could not, finishing last among the five VPNs I tested this week. It's worth noting that even with the nearly 30ms lower ping, League of Legends didn’t feel any slower.
On the other game tests, NordVPN managed to improve my ping on only Overwatch when connected to its Americas server, while slowing my connection on Overwatch (Asia server) and Team Fortress 2. The differences in latency were not noticeable in gameplay to me. Serious online gamers might be able to pick up such slight changes in ping, but they likely shouldn;t choose NordVPN with its speeds.
Next, I ran the three games again in the evening to see how my ping was affected. The results were similar to the afternoon tests. Again, NordVPN improved my ping on the Overwatch Americas test by the narrowest of margins. No gamer will be able to feel the difference of 1ms of latency, but NordVPN tied TorGuard as the only VPNs to improve ping on this test. Connecting to Nord again doubled my Team Fortress 2 ping - the worst result from this set of tests.
Lastly, NordVPN was very stable. It connected on every attempt I made and connected and disconnected quickly and never dropped a connection. It also allows P2P torrenting and didn’t block Netflix.
Purchasing Guide
NordVPN offers four payment plans. The price of the month-to-month plan of $11.95 is slightly higher than average. Like other services, NordVPN offers discounts if you sign up for six months or longer. Its six-month plan lowers the cost to $7.00 a month, the one-year plan costs $5.75 a month, and the two-year plan costs $3.29 a month, which makes it one of the most inexpensive popular VPNs at that level of time commitment.
- $11.95 a month billed monthly
- $7.00 a month billed every 6 months ($42.00 per 6 months)
- $5.75 a month billed annually ($69.00 a year)
- $3.29 a month billed every 2 years ($78.96)
Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.
The Verdict
NordVPN is a good choice if you are brand new to VPNs, thanks to its friendly and modern interface. It boasts a well-designed app that’s easy to use, but with limited options. Unfortunately it placed last in our speed tests and near last in most of our in-game ping tests as well, making it hard to recommended whole-heartedly. Even so, the slower speeds had little to no real-world impact on gaming sessions. For a happy medium where you get good performance and a well-designed app, I recommend PureVPN or VyprVPN. And as-always, consider Nord's free trial to see if performance in your location is better.
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